SOUTH AMERICA'S
"I MAKE BOLIVAR NAKED to protest the sainthood that has been
thrust on him." Colombian sculptor Arenas Betancourt shapes the
thought with powerful hands, telling me why he has portrayed
Simon Bolivar, South America's greatest hero, as a naked man on
muleback. "His custodians have transferred him to museums. They
are afraid to humanize him. Bolivar
makes sense today! He points out
the social problems of South Amer
ica. He understands the continent
must be united. He imagines a
world and makes us hope for it.
That is his banner, his anthem."
I had been following Bolivar's
banner for months, fascinated by
this young Venezuelan aristocrat
who burst onto the battlefield in
1811 to lead ragged armies of colo
nists and cowboys in a 14-year revo
WATERCOLORPORTRAITOF BOLVAR BYJOS MARfA
lution that broke Spain's colonial
ESPINOSA(CIRCA 1828). MUSEONACIONAL,BOGOTA,
COLOMBIA.ORNAMENTALSWORDGIVEN TO BOLIVARBY
THE CITY OF LIMA, PERU.
stranglehold on today's republics of
Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia (map, page 42).
I'd found his memorials everywhere, in statues and portraits
dominating town squares and official walls. I'd also heard him
quoted by conservatives and liberals, Marxists and Christians,